Ten CFOs to Watch in 2010: Dan Smith, Eclat

Present: Chief Financial Officer, Eclat LLC
Career highlights: Before coming to Eclat in August 2009, Smith had a non-federal business background. Over his 20-year career, he’s been an investment banker; he’s started and sold his own company; and he’s served as an executive of several early stage companies.
Personal: The youngest of eight kids, Smith grew up in Bethesda, Md., and now has three daughters of his own.

2010 Tips:

• Don’t spread yourself thin. “People talk about wrap rates, GSA schedules, and cost structures, but, at the end of the day, we shouldn’t be thinking about how to spread our overhead. We should be thinking: ‘How do I make money on every deal we bid on and provide a return on investment?’”

• Question authority. “In the federal market space, people tend to use a lot of the same metrics. It’s not enough to create a machine based on policies and procedures; you always need to question authority and continually look at your business in an evolving way.”

• Grow through current clients. “In this environment, pay close attention to your current clients. If you focus on the people you know — and from the clients you have — you absolutely can attain greater growth.”

Full Interview:

ExecutiveBiz: Financing in a tight economic climate can’t be easy. What can you share about the process?

Dan Smith: The financing was a huge challenge in that we were buying contracts from a company that went into bankruptcy and so we had no operating history. We had to approach financing sources and convince them essentially to buy into our forecast. That was an incredibly difficult obstacle that we overcame. At the end of the day, Access National was willing to partner with us.  The bought into the team and the belief that we can take these contracts on as a platform and leverage them to build a $500 million company.

ExecutiveBiz: You had to navigate the whole financing issue while assembling a team. What was that like?

Dan Smith: Like changing a tire at 60 miles per hour. You’re just doing so many things. So, we outsourced where we could. We hired NeoSystems as our outsourced accounting, as well as had them implement our Deltek accounting system.  This was very helpful as it allowed us to focus on operations.  In addition, we hired Administaff as our outsourced HR to help transition the nearly 200 employees.  Ultimately, all these little pieces when added up are quite challenging, but we were able to work them out in an extremely compressed time frame. Now, just a few months later, we’re in full swing.

ExecutiveBiz: Greg Baroni has stated that Eclat plans to grow organically and through acquisition, tripling its size as it exits 2010.  How do you plan to accomplish that?

Dan Smith: It’s the ambition that we all signed on to when we formed the company, so I echo his growth for 2010. To reach that point, we plan to stay incredibly nimble, and not put ourselves in a highly leveraged situation where we can’t handle surprises. We understand that we are not yet the $500 million company that is diversified enough to be able to handle fast-paced changes. Any little change in our business can affect us more, so we have to be prepared to handle that.  So, we intend to reach our goal in a controlled and profitable manner.

ExecutiveBiz: In what areas will Eclat pursue growth?

Dan Smith: We will look to significantly expand our federal presence, while we continue to focus on higher education and state and local government.  We have a terrific group of leaders and teams across each of these market segments.  For example, the leaders and teams that serve the higher education community have a great reputation with the large research institutions that look to them for a full range of IT and management consulting services.

ExecutiveBiz: In the past, you’ve helped companies get off the ground, then moved on to your next project. Are you at Eclat for the long run?

Dan Smith: Yes, I’m here for the long run and I certainly believe that we’ve built a fantastic team capable of achieving our long run goals.  Over the course of 2010, we’re going to grow Eclat both organically and through acquisitions and I’m excited about the road ahead.

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Posted by Staff Writer on Tuesday, January 12th, 2010. Filed under Executive Spotlight. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry